The Entertainer

In the Land of Mor, the beloved King Arivan’s reign marked one of peace with the neighboring kingdoms, and his people prospered from the trade route he established through the western realms. His Queen, the Lady Revel, was loved as well while she lived, though she was cut down by a band of thieves who ransacked her traveling party several years prior. The King and their one son, the Prince Pheramin, a young teen at the time, mourned her loss greatly, and their sadness was that of the kingdom’s. 

The boy grew to be strong and keen, and the King watched his growth with pride. At the age of nineteen, Pheramin found the one he would marry, the daughter of a rich merchant from the west. Makal had accompanied her father on one of his business ventures to the palace, and the Prince happened upon her singing in the courtyard. They spent those weeks together, inseparable, and he showed her the beauty of his Land, and she sang the beauty of hers. On the day she was to return home, they announced their intentions to both their fathers. The merchant was ecstatic, the King seemed reserved. The Prince knew Arivan was skeptical of the western woman, but he was sure Makal would win his heart. And his father often talked of being tired, perhaps he would be grateful that Pheramin had found a wife, as he would now ascend to the throne, with Makal his Queen. It was the way of things in Mor. The progeny became ruler of the land the day of the wedding, crowned at the altar. 

But the two never wed, as the Prince contracted the blue scourge. After two weeks of struggle, he lay comatose in his bed. The King reported the news to the people through thick tears, and the kingdom wept as well, as it was rare for one to wake from the blue sleep. No one could see Pheramin, due to contagion, not even his beloved Makal, who returned to the west with her father, broken.  

*****

The Archpriest Vernin Cannery waited outside the King’s chambers as he did every morning at week’s end. The King’s servants scurried about in a fury as their master prepared for the day. After some time, the King emerged.

“Good morning, your Majesty,” the Archpriest bowed. 

“Come on, Cannery” the King grunted casually. The Archpriest grimaced when the King turned away. They walked down the lavish corridors in silence, the Archpriest a step behind the King, as they did every week during this ritual. They turned down a small hallway dimly lit, and arrived at what appeared to be a dead-end. The Archpriest pressed a panel on the wall and the hidden doorway swung inward. The King led the way through and down the stone steps to the innards of the palace. The Archpriest clutched his long cloak and descended slowly, always wary of tripping on the steep staircase. He wiped sweat from his brow and cobwebs from his long grey beard and coughed from the smoke of the lanterns lining the walls. The King however, still spry and healthy for his age, seemed unaffected by the conditions of the cramped underbelly of the palace. 

After their long descent, they came to their destination, a secluded dungeon unknown to most everyone except for the King, the Archpriest, and a few trusted soldiers. At the sight of the King, the two guards bowed to their knees before unlatching the lock and stepping aside. The hinges screeched and the Archpriest winced. They entered and stepped down into the chamber. It was much larger than any cell in the main dungeon, the grey stone walls decorated with ornate tapestries, the mattress atop the well-crafted bed frame was filled with cotton, not the scattered straw that the other prisoners were forced to sleep on like swine. A fresh water basin was stationed next to the bed. There were several stacks of books on the dirt floor. A young man sat at a small desk in the center of the room and scribbled on parchment with his quill. The King shook his head, as he knew they were words no soul would ever read. 

“Good day, Pheramin,” the King said pleasantly, as he did each week at the beginning of every visit for the past year. 

“How is the sky look these days, father? Still blue?” Pheramin dipped his quill in the ink and continued to write, his eyes never leaving the paper. 

“Now, son—"

“It’s funny you continue to call me son.”

“You are still my son.” 

“Your son is asleep in an empty chamber, or am I mistaken?” 

The King rubbed his jaw, as he often did when irritated. “I have explained to you many times the reasons I took the actions I did—”

“Yes, yes.” Pheramin raised his hand to halt the King’s words. “No need to repeat them. It’s tiresome when you do so. I can’t bear to hear once more how this was for my own good and the good of the kingdom. How Makal’s father sought control of Mor…”

“All of it true.” 

The Prince looked up and met his father’s gaze with bright and childlike eyes. He smiled broadly. “I believe you, father. This dungeon is quite the home, definitely the best place for me to spend the rest of my life.” He turned back to his parchment. Pheramin’s dismissive levity infuriated the King, who looked to the Archpriest with flaming cheeks and gritted teeth, as if a it were a plea for help with the boy, or perhaps to ensure his insolence was not seen as a weakness of the King. Cannery remained expressionless.

“You know what I’m here to ask,” The King turned back to his son and said evenly, in spite of his anger. 

“I do?” The Prince asked innocently. 

“Yes, boy. Stop with the games.” 

“I must insist that you say the words.” Pheramin again looked at the King, but now the levity was gone, his eyes equal in intensity to his father’s, truly his son. 

“So be it,” the King snarled. “Pheramin, Prince of Mor, will you pledge yourself to the Church and forsake your succession to the Crown and abandon your right of marriage and with it, the throne? Will you give yourself to God and the priesthood, to live a quiet life away from the ills of the world of Man, thus releasing you from this self-made prison?” 

A heavy silence weighed on the room as Pheramin laid down his quill. He folded his hands in his lap and looked to the Archpriest, who was there as Witness to God. If the Prince gave the pledge in his presence, we was bound to it by law. He then looked to the grey ceiling, as if picturing clouds passing above his head. He let out a long sigh.

“No thank you.” He grinned and took up his quill once more.

“So be it!” The King raged. “If that’s what you wish my boy, then I will entertain you here as my guest for another week.” 

“Yes, you will,” the Prince responded. “But I will not entertain you, father.” 

The King threw his hands in the air with disgust and made for the door. 

“Father wait,” Pheramin extended his hand. “Please have the Archpriest stay. I wish to receive a blessing.” 

“As you wish,” the King accepted, unable to refuse the request. “Talk some damn sense into him,” he whispered to Cannery as he walked past. 

“I will try, my Lord,” the Archpriest bowed and the King exited, shutting the door behind him. Several minutes later, the Archpriest knocked on the thick wood slats to be let out from the chamber. The guards obliged and Cannery walked down the lantern lit corridor, the hood of his cloak over his face. 

*

That afternoon the King found himself outside his son’s cell once again. 

“My Lord,” the door guards stammered, “we don’t know how—” 

“Take these men to be hanged,” the King instructed the soldiers behind him. The two guards pled for forgiveness, but the King had already forgotten them as he entered the chamber. The Archpriest sat slumped in the chair behind the desk, stripped of his cloak and robes. He held a bloodied cloth to the side of his head. 

“Your Majesty,” he said weakly at the sight of the King. 

“What in God’s name happened?” 

“I gave the Prince the blessing he asked for, and I tried to persuade him to take your offer. He refused of course, and I went to leave, he knocked me unconscious and stole my clothes. I just now awoke. The guards said the person who left the cell also had a beard. Constructed of rat hair no doubt. That horrid snake of a Prince.” Cannery realized his slur against Pheramin and began to apologize, but the King stopped him. 

“He is indeed a snake. I wonder now why I kept him alive all this time.” The King felt the heat in his ears and a vice on his chest. What was his son thinking? Where would who go? Who would he contact? He took up Pheramin’s parchments. He’d never thought much of what the boy wrote, just drivel he expected. But as he looked at the pages, the vice tightened, and it became difficult to swallow. Scrolled in ink were words of revenge and warnings of redemption, manifestos of a new revolution. The King screamed and tore the paper and the pieces littered the stone floor, but the words would live forever in his mind. 

*****

The Prince took a moment to look back upon the Palace. So many fond years now soured. He felt sorry for injuring Cannery. The Archpriest was merely a pawn of his father’s like everyone else. But Pheramin had no intention of staying in this place, not as prisoner nor King. The need for power had bled from him long ago. 

He went west and found his love. Makal had not married, still broken by her loss, and the two fled happily together to a land more distant. They traveled as minstrels, he on the lute, she with her voice. And she often sang of a king who died a paranoid and lonely man, always fearing the return of his son, and the loss of his throne.